Compromise
by GenvieveWoolf
Summary: So, we're ready to be one happy little family, right? Maybe not. Mutt insists on calling the shots! Can Indy out-argue his son? :p Feel-good fluffness. It also falls under "Humor" but I could choose only two genres, so... Some pain, but K rating stands.


_It is helpful, but not necessary to read my story "Pressure Points" before you read this one. :D_

_Takes place right after the alien dude(s?) takes off, naturally._

_Indy, Mutt, Marion, and Ox do not belong to me—they just like to pretend they do._

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COMPROMISE

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"Somewhere your grandpa is laughing."

Mutt didn't react.

Oxley did. He seemed to think the situation quite puzzling.

"We've been had, Ox," Mutt said, scowling. "Frankly, I don't know why you didn't figure it out since you _knew_ I wasn't Collin's son. Nice of you to tell me."

Ox shrugged. "I didn't _know_, actually...and it wasn't my place to tell."

"Yeah." Mutt looked to his mother.

Marion looked guiltily back at him. "I was going to tell you..."

Mutt groaned. "Don't bother. OK? I don't want to hear it." He turned away and started down the mountainside again.

"Stay here, kid," Indy said firmly.

Mutt stopped walking but did not turn around. "I haven't had a father most of my life and I see no point starting now. I thought I had a mom I could trust my whole life, and now I guess I don't have that either. I'm on my own, so I might as well leave now as later."

Marion started to speak, but Indy put a hand over hers and shook his head. He called, "You're in no shape to go anywhere. You'll just end up breaking a leg and getting swallowed by an anaconda."

"That's your phobia, not mine."

Indy left the others and approached his son.

He didn't expect Mutt to run.

"Blast," Indy muttered as he moved into a jog. As if his day hadn't been strenuous enough. He was too old for this. "Mutt, wait!"

"Quit while you're behind, teach. I can run all the way to the States if I have to. Or at least to the cemetery where they left my bike."

"That's ridiculous! Do you...have any idea...how far...that is?" Indy knew he'd be winded soon. Mutt had reached the edge of the jungle.

Mutt jumped onto the side of a tree and began scrambling up its trunk with the aid of the parasitic vines that grew over its surface.

"Blast," Indy said again. At least he had stopped running. Maybe now he would talk.

"I'll see you around, old man," Mutt said, looking down from a height of about fifteen feet. "If you ever want a bike, look me up." With that, he took hold of a vine dangling from another tree nearby and launched himself from his perch.

Indy watched open-mouthed as Mutt came to the bottom of his swing and—the vine broke. "One biker in the side pocket," he murmured to himself. He hurried forward to the spot where Mutt lay flat on his back.

As he approached, Mutt released an inhuman, hollow moan.

"Easy, kid. Hold still."

Mutt did not seem to _want_ to hold still. As soon as Indy was kneeling beside him, he started trying to get up.

Knowing that Mutt might injure himself further, Indy searched his limited knowledge of popular slang for something that would calm him.

"Cool it!"

Mutt stopped moving. So far so good.

"You may be hurt worse than you think," Indy explained.

"Ha!" Mutt said, his voice half strangled. "After all I've been through today, I...I.... My _everything_ hurts."

"I'm not surprised. Was that vine thing actually supposed to work?"

"It did before."

"You're lucky you weren't killed."

"I'm starting to appreciate that. But I think I just grabbed the wrong kind of vine."

"Uh-huh. That would explain it."

"Shut up—please? It's not fair."

Indy knew what he meant: it's not fair to antagonize someone while he's down. "OK. Can you move your feet?"

"My feet? I landed on my back, man."

"Please, just humor me."

Mutt rolled his eyes, but he rocked his feet from side to side. "Happy?"

"Very. You're not paralyzed."

The boy's expression sobered. "Yeah. I guess that _is_ a good thing."

Indy nodded. "Listen, I'm sorry you didn't know about me...and that I didn't know about you. I don't really think that part is my fault, but it's a lousy break for you too, so..."

"Yeah," Mutt interrupted. "It's not your fault."

Indy waited, looking over the few visible injuries Mutt sported and imagining the others that couldn't be seen.

Mutt continued, "I just don't know if I can make room for a father in my life. Since my da—since Collin died, it's always been me, Mom and Ox. Mom's been a great support, and Ox gives good advice, but I've pretty much made my own decisions. I don't think I can give that up."

"Have you ever heard of a thing called compromise?"

"Yeah...that's where I say I want one thing, you say you want another, you get me to try your way for a week, insist that it works great and we never try my way."

Indy laughed. "No, kid, that's not compromise. That's politics."

"Whatever it is, it stinks."

"Look, I know you feel gypped. I do too. You never knew who your real father was, and I never knew I _was_ a father. My response is, I want to give it a try. But if that's not what you want...I definitely don't want you to resent me. So I'm not going to force myself on you."

"You're sure quick to get cozy with my mom again," Mutt pointed out.

"That's...a separate issue."

"OK. But let's talk about it. I'm the man in her life right now, and I wanna know what your intentions are."

Indy was staggered. "It's been a long time since I've heard _that_ speech," he said at last. "It normally comes from someone much older than you."

"Yeah, well if I could choose, I'd take a dad younger than you. Don't dodge the issue. You in love with her? You think you're gonna marry her? Cause you're sure as shootin' not rekindling your little..._whatever-_it-was if that's _not_ in the plan, you dig me?"

"Yeah, I...'dig' you." Indy put a hand on Mutt's shoulder, hoping to calm the boy. "Just take it easy. I'm sure we can get this straightened out peaceably."

"Sure, sure. What are your plans?"

"Uh...getting out of Akator alive was where I left off with the plans. I hadn't really started thinking about stuff like this."

"So _start_ thinking, big daddy. Razz my berries."

Indy sat back on the leafy ground and sighed. The slang was not doing much to endear his son to him. "I love Marion. I have for a long time. I'm probably not good enough for her, but I think that's for her to decide."

"We'll see," Mutt said. "Keep spilling."

"I'd hope after all these years that I have the maturity to make a relationship last," Indy went on.

"Yeah, one would hope. _All_ those years..."

Another snipe at his age. Indy managed to let it go. Which was good, since he had just mentioned maturity.

"And I wouldn't pressure her into it if I thought it would make her unhappy."

Mutt nodded and began slowly propping himself up on his elbows. "OK, that sounds pretty earthbound for now. But about Marion...she's got a kid."

"You think?"

"Yeah. A kid almost grown. How does he figure into this, Indy?"

Feeling completely astounded for the second time in five minutes, Indy said, "Where do you get the nerve to call your parents by their first names?"

"Ah-ah-ah," Mutt said, wagging an index finger. "You said yourself that that's a separate issue. We're talking about you and Marion right now. Whether or not you want to marry her. All I'm asking is, if that happens, what are your plans for the kid?"

"I thought you were just full of hot air when you said you learned to debate," Indy growled. "My 'plans for the kid,' as you put it, are to treat him like my own son—oh, wait...he _is_."

Mutt pressed his lips together and drew his eyebrows into a scowl. "A little more detail, please. You've never had a son before, so that doesn't clear up how you'd treat him."

"You want a detailed layout of every day from now till the day I die?"

"Mmm.... That might take too long. Try this: jump ahead a few months. You and the maternal figure get circled. Let's say you take a little honeymoon. You have a blast and come back on cloud nine."

"What?!"

Mutt sighed. "Wedding. Honeymoon. You're happy."

"OK, I follow so far."

"So then, when the HM's over, where does that leave you, Indy-Pops, on terms with Marion's progeny?"

Indy rubbed his temples. "I swear you're speaking an obscure dialect designed to undermine society as we know it."

"Be that as it may, please to answer the question, Dr. Jones."

"Right. I assume I'll be teaching again. I'd like to see my son in school."

Mutt wrestled into a sitting position. "Ow," he muttered. "OK, so, like..._your_ school?"

"The kid isn't ready for my school yet—he never finished high school, and I'm a college professor."

"That could be good for his confidence," Mutt mused. He rubbed his chin, which was swollen from various blows received that day. "The kid might be intimidated if he had to attend his father's school so soon."

"Maybe you're right." Indy nearly smiled. At least Mutt was thinking about this realistically now.

"But maybe the kid doesn't want to finish at all."

"Maybe his father knows what's best for him."

"Why?" Mutt's professional air disappeared. "Why is it so important to finish school?"

"Because knowledge is power. Like that bit of debating you learned—if you have the right facts behind your words, you can really influence people. Even if all you want to do is fix bikes—people will still respect you more if you're knowledgeable, if you speak well, and if you have the presence of a man who knows what he's doing. I want those things for my son."

Mutt stared at the ground for a long time.

_Please_, Indy thought, _don't you get that I want it to work for all three of us?_

"OK, time to compromise," Mutt announced.

"I'm listening."

Mutt looked up at Indy. "We leave this where it is for now, you help me find my bike and get me, mom and Ox back to the States safely. Then we talk about it some more."

"What kind of compromise is that? That's a postponement with conditions."

"Well...that's what I'm offering."

"I have a counter-offer," Indy said.

"OK, let's have it."

"Since I would have done my best to get you all home safely anyway, and would probably have helped you recover your motorcycle, too, how about we just leave everything where it is with no conditions until we're home?"

Again, Mutt stared at the ground. Then a smile finally appeared on his young, battered face. "Yeah, I guess that sounds fair."

Indy pushed himself up off the ground, wincing at the stiffness of his joints. He held out a hand to Mutt. "This way up," he couldn't help saying, as he had in the cemetery two nights before.

"Yeah," Mutt said, accepting the help and getting to his feet. "Thanks."

On the way back to Marion and Oxley, Indy put an arm around Mutt's shoulders. Mutt gave him a quick glance, but didn't try to shrug him off. Maybe he was too tired—after all, his "everything" hurt.

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_The end.__ PLEASE REVIEW! :D__ I now have a sequal up called "The Journey Home." Take a look at it. :)  
_


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